"The Great Dictator"

"Modern Times" was Chaplin's next film but the distributors decided it was not worthwhile re-releasing It. Therefore, "The Great Dictator" is the next on the list. When Chaplin opens his mouth. The artist "who brought the form of the motion picture to its purest realisation" now attacks the medium of sound.

The plot and theme of "The Great Dictator" are too well known to warrant repetition here. I shall restrict myself to a few remarks, mainly to point the development of Chaplin as an artist and thinker. It is this film that we begin to say goodbye to Charlie the little tramp. He is still with us in the form of the Jewish barber who is the complete opposite of the dictator. Hynkel. But we find that with speech Charlie is only a shadow of his former self. In appearing as the barber, the antithesis of Hynkel a member of a persecuted family, Charlie has lost some of his transcendental quality, his universality. Charlie had expressed the whole of himself and of mankind in mime. Words impede and embarrass him; and we feel, with painful nostalgia, that the Charlie we knew has gone from us.

But with Charlie out of the way, Chaplin had a chance to develop to a fuller maturity as an artist and a thinker. Having dealt with poverty and loneliness of his universal clown. Chaplin takes over and turns his attention to what he conceives to be one of the greatest evils of our time—Fascism. Chaplin the crusader speaks to mankind with burning sincerity. What he says Is intensely personal to him.